Five Homesteading Books to Add to Your Collection

Flickr Image by Georgie Sharp

The term homesteading often brings to mind a picturesque farm in the country with perfectly straight, equally divided fields. In reality, homesteaders are everywhere. Whether you’re in the city or the country, on a large plot of land, on 1/4 acre, or even on a small plot in the suburbs, homesteads come in all shapes and sizes. Whether you’re new to homesteading or your family has been homesteading for years, here are some great resources to add to your bookshelves.

The Backyard Homestead Guide to Raising Farm Animals

The Backyard Homestead Guide to Raising Farm Animals will show you how you can raise farm animals to provide food for your family, even on a limited amount of land. Topics covered include choosing breeds, raising livestock (by species), cooking and utilizing your bounty, harvesting honey and more. There’s a great full color Breed Guide included with this book which is an excellent resource for anyone interested in learning how to raise livestock, novice or not.

As with its predecessor, The Backyard Homestead, there are excellent illustrations to help you lay out your homestead plan. This book is another excellent reference to keep on your shelf!

Storey’s Basic Country Skills: A Practical Guide to Self-Reliance

The Storey’s Basic Country Skills: A Practical Guide to Self Reliance is a comprehensive reference for anyone wanting to simply become more self-reliant. This book walks you through the days and seasons of homesteading, providing invaluable information on various topics on homesteading from buying the right piece of land to caring for your livestock. So many homesteaders swear by Storey’s Basic Country Skills as an excellent guide for learning new skills or refreshing yourself about skills you haven’t used in a while.

The Homesteading Handbook: A Back to Basics Guide to Growing Your Own Food, Canning, Keeping Chickens, Generating Your Own Energy, Crafting, Herbal Medicine, and More

The Homesteading Handbook is another great resource covering topics such as planting a home garden to lower your grocery bill, utilizing the fruits and vegetables available to you, building projects to offset energy costs and other money saving ideas. The premise behind The Homesteading Handbook is that homesteading is not only good for the environment but it can be good for your budget as well! This is another great starting point for learning about new ventures in homesteading.

Urban Homesteading: Heirloom Skills for Sustainable Living

Homesteading doesn’t require that you live in the country! Even city dwellers can homestead! Urban Homesteading explains the concept behind this kind of urban lifestyle and discusses topics such as buying local, developing self-reliance and sustainability. This book is full of colorful illustrations and tutorials for readers to adapt to fit their specific needs. Topics covered in Urban Homesteading include vertical gardening, watering your garden, making your own cleans and gardening treatments, raising livestock in the city and more.

The Urban Homestead: Your Guide to Self-Sufficient Living in the Heart of the City

In the revised and expanded, The Urban Homestead, readers will find advice from people who are homesteading in the city on growing their own food, utilizing alternative energy, raising livestock in the city, vermiculture, making your own natural cleaning products, and more. This book discusses not only growing your own food but also how to reduce your waste through composting, raising bees, and preserving your food. This book also directs you to more resources, both in print and online, to expand your urban homestead.

That’s five great resources to get your hands on as soon as possible! No matter what you’re experience is at homesteading, everyone can learn something new. Give one of these books a try today and see what you didn’t know!

What’s your top resource for homesteading? Share your favorite in the comments!

About Carrie Foster (aka FarmGirl)

Carrie (aka FarmGirl) is a small town, southern farm girl to the core that married her soul mate and then made 3 perfectly impish boys. They are working hard to provide their children with the kind of memories they had growing up-those of gardens, canning, baking, livestock, and most of all, family. Carrie is always looking for ways to eat better, live simpler and take care of the four men that mean the most to her.